{"id":15995,"date":"2025-08-05T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T07:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=15995"},"modified":"2025-08-04T18:18:46","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T00:18:46","slug":"civics-the-supposed-leaders-of-journalism-should-be-able-to-distinguish-between-adequate-coverage-and-monumental-historic-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=15995","title":{"rendered":"civics: The supposed leaders of journalism should be able to distinguish between adequate coverage and monumental, historic failure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Matt Taibbi:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Letter to Bill Grueskin, former Dean of the Columbia Journalism School<\/a>, on his recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Grueskin,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding your August 1 article, \u201cKnowing: Still Only Half the Battle<\/a>,\u201d which lauds Charlie Savage of the New York Times <\/em>for having \u201cdissected and eviscerated\u201d Director of Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard\u2019s claims about corruption of intelligence in the Trump-Russia investigation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You praised Savage\u2019s article, \u201cNew Reports on Russian Interference Don\u2019t Show What Trump Says They Do<\/a>,\u201d as an example of the work of an \u201cexperienced beat reporter\u201d who can distill complex stories into a \u201ccoherent, compelling whole.\u201d Your sub-headline stressed the importance of \u201cshowing receipts\u201d in journalism, where \u201cmost people don\u2019t follow stories very closely,\u201d but \u201cthey can learn a lot when an experienced beat reporter helps them sort out what\u2019s important and what\u2019s chaff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except \u2014 and you should know this because the Columbia Journalism Review <\/a><\/em>published over 20,000 words on the subject<\/a> in January 2023 \u2014 Savage and his colleagues at the Times<\/em> have badly miscovered this story for nearly a decade, and continue to do so. The 2018 Pulitzer Prize<\/a> the paper won on the topic along with the Washington Post <\/em>will go down as the same kind of \u201cdisgrace<\/a>\u201d as its 1932 Pulitzer for Walter Duranty\u2019s breathless coverage<\/a> of Stalin\u2019s Russia. In this case, the Times <\/em>drifted so far from its traditional mission that it became an animating motive for Gabbard and other investigators in Donald Trump\u2019s administration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Witness FBI Director Kash Patel throwing down a gauntlet<\/a> this weekend, right after your piece ran. He challenged media figures who called him a \u201cliar\u201d in 2018, when as an investigator in the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) chaired by California\u2019s Devin Nunes, he outed the Steele Dossier as \u201cfictitious intelligence<\/a>\u201d used to deceive a federal judge and unlawfully spy on Trump\u2019s campaign. Patel added, \u201cNow I\u2019m the FBI Director,\u201d then hinted that he might release \u201cmore docs\u201d so \u201cwe can see who is lying,\u201d before ending with a reference to \u201cbogus Pulitzers.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matt Taibbi: Letter to Bill Grueskin, former Dean of the Columbia Journalism School, on his recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review Mr. Grueskin, Regarding your August 1 article, \u201cKnowing: Still Only Half the Battle,\u201d which lauds Charlie Savage of the New York Times for having \u201cdissected and eviscerated\u201d Director of Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard\u2019s claims about corruption of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15995"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15995"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15996,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15995\/revisions\/15996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}